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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

GAY MARRIAGE: do you want it or not? The Bible doesn’t oppose it

Caitlin Stark of CNN has “done the numbers” on gay marriage and has come up with the following results:

11 countries worldwide have legal same-sex marriage

There are 646,000 same-sex couple households in the U.S., as of 2010

3.5% of Americans identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual

Same-sex couple households have grown by 80.4% from 2000 to 2010

Only 48% of Americans oppose gay marriage in 2012, compared to 68% in 1996

115,064 same-sex couple households in the U.S. have children

The District of Columbia has the highest percentage of same-sex households in the U.S. at 1.8%

These numbers all come from qualified sources like the Gallup poll.And the most significant findings in relation to the November elections are the facts that there has been a surge of same-sex couples since 2000, and the opposition to gay marriage has dropped by 20 points.That’s almost 30 percent.That would seem to indicate that either the religious right has lost much of its influence over the issue, or just a lot of Americans have finally opened their minds.

In another Gallup survey taken the first of May, 50 percent of respondents want same-sex marriage compared to 48 percent who don’t.And although the Dems. were solidly for and the GOP was mostly against, Independents approved at the rate of 53 percent with 44 percent against.Interestingly, 40 percent of Americans said that President Obama’s decision to back same-sex marriage will have an effect on their vote in November.

The President will accept the Democratic Party’s nomination in North Carolina in September.That state just approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.The much needed Independent vote indicated 23 percent less likely to vote for Obama, 11 percent more likely.However, overall 60 percent of Americans were unfazed.Yet on the other side of the aisle, the Republican Party chairman claims most Americans agree with Mitt Romney’s stand against.

Barack Obama is the first U.S. President to come out in favor of the ultimate right for gays.It will no doubt garner the gay vote, and he didn’t have the conservative religious right anyway.So what’s the take down?The question is just where does that 66 percent of Independent voters stand on the matter that haven’t indicated being for or against?Also, there have been rumbles in the Hispanic community of dissent but probably won’t cost him their votes.

“According to a report released in May 2011 by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, same-sex relations are still criminalized in 76 countries, and in five of those countries the death penalty can be applied (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania and Sudan).”From the GlobalPublicSquare blog, the Netherlands was the first to make it legal followed by countries like Canada, Norway, Sweden and Spain.

President Obama on gay marriage:

But in many issues such as this, whether you are a devout Christian or a confirmed atheist, in the U.S. it ultimately comes down to what is in the Bible.Say what you want but we do put a lot of faith in the “good book,” regardless of our interpretations.The Bible is well documented and if you ignore the reworking from generation to generation, the original substance usually survives.So many will be surprised that, “Nowhere does the Bible actually oppose homosexuality.”

Shocked?Southern Baptists are probably clicking off my blog right now, if I didn’t already lose them with the headline.The above is a quote from Daniel Helminiak, who was ordained a priest in Rome, is a theologian, psychotherapist and author of “What the Bible Really Says about homosexuality.”He is currently a professor of psychology at the University of West Georgia.He says the Bible is “ho-hum on homosexuality” unless you talk of abuse and injustice.

In the above article link, Helminiak talks about biblical passages re. male-male sex, resulting in their women exchanging “natural intercourse for unnatural.”Although the apostle Paul called this dishonorable and unseemly, he added that even he was held in dishonor for preaching about Christ.Also describing homosexuality as an abomination, Paul did not condemn male-male sex, and he never used ethical terms in its description.

Just how the GOP will use Obama’s decision against him in November will say a lot about how low they will stoop to win an election.I wonder what Karl Rove, whose father was gay, would do with the President’s decision to back same-sex marriage?Rove recently accused him of politicizing it.But there is one thing for sure, we know that the Tea Party will do everything in their power to turn this into a nasty attack on Obama.Like all the rest of their unscrupulous tactics.